The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Traffic congestion goes unchecked

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Tuesday, Aug 12, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Traffic congestion goes unchecked

With little scope for widening roads and absence of exclusive parking areas, thoroughfares are jam-packed with vehicles parked on either side, says Rajesh B. Nair

With no firm measures taken to streamline parking arrangement and regulate vehicular movement in the town, traffic congestion has become menacing in the town, though promises had been made by the government in the last four years to put a proper traffic system in place.

An added dimension to the problem is the ever-increasing number of vehicles. The increase was three times in the last 10 years. In Puducherry, the number of vehicles has grown from 167,252 in 1998 to 4,40,169 as on March 23, 2008. Among them are 3,42, 001 two wheelers and 60,000 light motor vehicles.

Ten years ago there were only 82,964 two wheelers and 21,561 cars, officials in the Traffic Department said.

“In the recent years, we are witnessing a 30 per cent annual increase in the number of vehicles, particularly two-wheelers,” said Superintendent of Police (Traffic) S. Kuppusamy.

With little scope for widening roads and absence of exclusive parking areas in the town, main thoroughfares such as the Jawaharlal Nehru Street, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Mission Street, Rangapillai Street, Busy Street, Kamaraj Salai, Anna Salai and Ambour Salai are all jam-packed with vehicles parked on either side.

Sometime, the road users park the vehicles on the pavements too, leaving little space to pedestrians. “It’s so difficult to find space on the footpaths. At one moment, I find on the pavement and then off it again, as the space is shared by the hawkers and the vehicles.

Most of the time I have to find my way walking on the road negotiating with the speeding vehicles,” Revathy, a college student said.

Not only traders, customers and office goers who occupy the road by parking their vehicle on either sides but a fairly good number of residents too park their cars and two-wheelers on the road as the building did not have a garage.

A proposal made by the Traffic Department at the Standing Committee meeting held in February 2007 to the Town and Country Planning Department to make it mandatory for new commercial and residential buildings, to have the basement as parking area had not been implemented.

Coupled with the problem of lack of adequate space for parking vehicles, the narrow interior roads had to handle the heavy two-way traffic. Except, the J. N Street, Ambalathamadiar Street, Rangapillai Street and certain areas of M. G Road, Bharathi Street and Mission Street, no other roads have the one-way traffic system. “A year ago we have submitted a proposal to the government to introduce one-way system in all the interior roads within the Boulevard area. But it has not been considered so far,” said a senior traffic policeman.

Traders said the only solution to check the traffic menace would be the introduction of paid parking areas in the town.

“We would be happy to shift our vehicles from the road to a parking bay if it is a secure area,” said a trader in M. G Road. With the Central prison at the J. N Street ready to be shifted to a new building at Kalapet, the traffic police expect the government to construct a multi-storeyed parking lot in the area. The Pondicherry Municipality had already passed a resolution recommending the government to construct the parking bay on a build-operate-transfer mode at the J. N Street. “The area if converted into a parking place can accommodate more than 200 vehicles, including two-wheelers. This can ease the parking and traffic congestion at least along the J.N Street, Mission Street and M. G Road,” said Mr. Kuppusamy.

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